blonde as a Fin’ is in use among the Russians of the parts adjoining Finland at the present day.[1] The Fins that settled in England must have come as allies of the Danes, and it is interesting to note that by the Roman road east Gloucestershire was in direct communication with Lincolnshire.
One of the peculiarities of the topography of Shropshire and Worcestershire is the considerable number of old names we can trace that apparently denote tribal settlements, as if a number of different people were settled on this borderland in large communities for defensive purposes. Among these, the following are mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon charters[2]: Wrocensetna and Scrobsetan in Shropshire, and the Tonsetan or Temsetan somewhere west of the Severn. The latter may be the settlers on the river Teme, whose name can still be traced in that of the ancient manor of Tempsiter, which included twenty-three townships of the Honour of Clun, and through which Off as Dyke passes.[3] The river Clun is the longest tributary of the Teme, the latter name being now applied to the stream only after its junction with the Onny near Ludlow. The Tonsetan or Temsetan appear to have been the settlers on the Welsh border near Clun. Another Worcestershire settlement which is described as a province was that of the Usmére people,[4] whose name appears to have been lost. In Herefordshire and a part of north Gloucestershire the tribe known as the Magesætas were located. We read of a grant of land at Hay ‘in pago Magesætna’ as late as A.D. 958.[5] This tribe must have been a large one, and Maisemore near Gloucester may have been its eastern limit. May Hill near Ross, and another May Hill near Monmouth, are probably places where the name survives.
